oil and water
by ARandomFangirler
Summary: "Kaoru should really see a therapist, Kyoya thinks as he debates between buying one bottle of sake or two in a convenience store that he's become too well-acquainted with." (NOT KyoKao, oneshot)


**Kaoru/Haruhi? Kyoya/Haruhi? Porque no los dos?**

**Mei is a secondary manga character (she's Misuzu's daughter, and a female friend of the Host Club, specifically Haruhi and the twins), and Kyoya and Mori's choices of study are lifted from the manga, but everything else is entirely anime-compliant or original, with a healthy disregard for Bisco Hatori's imagined futures laid out in Vol. 18's bonus pages. It's not canon if it's not in a main chapter - that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!**

* * *

They've been friends for five years, Kaoru and Kyoya; longer, if you count the first year of the club, which they don't. Kyoya should really know better by now. Then again, there's something to be said for the power of nostalgia.

* * *

It's always the same - well, there are variations, but generalisations are acceptable in this case. Kaoru should really see a therapist, Kyoya thinks as he debates between buying one bottle of _sake_ or two in a convenience store that he's become too well-acquainted with. Hell, Kyoya should also see a therapist, but there's never enough time in the day for that, and nighttime therapists are hard to find, so that's his excuse for now. In the end, he gets two, and harbours under the illusion (delusion) that if they don't drink the second one, they can always save it for next time. And there will be a next time, after all, otherwise why else would he be stood here for the third time this month after telling himself this twice previously?

They're an odd pair. Kyoya has always been somewhat of a seventh wheel, a shadow king, as Haruhi calls him - it's Tamaki-and-Haruhi and Hikaru-and-Kaoru and Mori-and-Hunny and then, pause, Kyoya. But Hikaru dyes his hair now, and Mori studies law, and things can't be as they were. God knows who the seventh wheel is now. But as of late, one of the pairs is Kyoya-and-Kaoru, which Kyoya absolutely refuses to admit out loud (seriously, _someone _needs to tell Kaoru to get out more), but Kyoya's not an outright liar. And it's not - it's not _terrible._

So he stands in the convenience store under liminal lights that make him look dead ("That's not the lights," Haruhi would say, "That's just you.") and admits to himself that perhaps befriending Kaoru Hitachiin is not the worst thing in the world.

* * *

"They broke up," Kaoru says through a mouthful of pizza one night. Considering his upbringing, his table manners are godawful. He chases the pizza with a swig of _sake, _glances at Kyoya with narrowed eyes_. _"Milord and Haruhi."

"I heard," Kyoya acknowledges, polishing his glasses. He already ate - not that Kaoru looks like he's about to tear himself from it anytime soon. "Tamaki thinks they'll get back together."

"Tamaki always thinks they'll get back together," Kaoru swallows, wipes the sauce on his mouth with a napkin. For one terrifying moment, Kyoya had thought he was going to use his hand. "It seemed serious this time. I talked to Haruhi this morning."

"That happened last time," Kyoya reminds him, and reaches for his own glass of _sake_. It's always Kaoru whom Haruhi calls, for reasons that Kyoya cannot be entirely sure of yet fascinate him nevertheless. Hikari, Kaoru and Haruhi have always been such an unlikely trio. "I agree, however."

Kaoru wrinkles his nose and sighs. It's moments like these that he seems so far removed from his twin that Kyoya can hardly recall how people ever managed to confuse them; Hikaru, though mostly over his love for Haruhi, would most likely be more happy than not over this news. Yet Kaoru, who never fully confessed, who never fully grieved, the only one of them who ever had the tiny seed of _what-if _implanted, just sits there, staring at Kyoya's table like it's managed to offend him. "Do you think she's finally realises that they can't just keep doing this forever?"

"Four years is forever for them," Kyoya deflects, and finishes the rest of his drink. "Though not as forever as marriage."

The furrow in Kaoru's brow goes deeper at that. Kyoya cracks the second bottle open.

* * *

Haruhi and Tamaki endure exactly one more breakup before it's Over, capitalised and official and for good, and in news that is shocking to absolutely nobody, they remain friends. Of course they do - they still _love _one another, it's just that Tamaki has years of growing up to do and Haruhi realises that all the shoujo manga she read conveniently left out that one's first love doesn't necessarily have to be their last love. At some point, things became less about the present and more about the future, and that's the downside of every story written: characters can never move on past the ending. Yet life continues, ebbs and flows much like time itself; the seasons change from autumn to winter and Tamaki demands use of the kotatsu (Hikaru and Kaoru spend an entire afternoon kicking him, and then each other, in the shins) and nothing and everything is different in the way that old friendships often are. Because what they are now are _old friends, _a thought that would vaguely horrify Kyoya if he ever put aside the time to dwell on it too often, and with that comes ease and comfort and other things that, again, Kyoya does not wish to unpack.

Sentimentality is a funny thing, he realises, picking out another bottle of cheap _sake._

So back to the sitting room, to pizza so cheap that it's a wonder Kaoru hasn't contracted food poisoning, to enough _sake _to put a horse to sleep, to a routine that Kyoya is in adamant denial of. "Aren't you ever scared that you'll grow up just like your father?" Kaoru asks, because Tamaki has daddy issues and Hikaru has everyone issues and, really, Kaoru just likes getting under Kyoya's skin and staying there.

"Maybe that's what I want," Kyoya indulges him, feels the stickiness of rice wine clinging to his mouth. "The Ohtori family is a great one."

"Not necessarily good," Kaoru wiggles his eyebrows, and leans back on his elbows, letting 100,000 yen fabric chafe against equally-priced carpet. "Milord was never the only one who benefited from the whole family charade, was he?"

That's the problem with Kaoru; Kyoya, at least, has never pretended to be anything other than conniving. Haruhi would call this 'maturity', but Kyoya knows better. Kaoru might be less terrible than his brother, but that just means that his atrocities are more concentrated, directed entirely at Kyoya's sitting room and the bottle of wine that lays between them like thirty pieces of silver. "Japanese is such an ambiguous language," Kyoya says, and Kaoru's mouth quirks into something that might be the ghost of a smile.

* * *

Mei drops by once, because her and Kaoru still call each other every week to talk about whatever the hell they still have to talk about. She examines two of them with an unimpressed, kohl-rimmed gaze that speaks volumes. "You're both so depressing," she announces. "Even Haruhi's social life is better."

"We are Haruhi's social life," Kyoya points out, and Mei purses her hugely overdrawn lips.

"At least she had a boyfriend," she says. "What do you two have other than burgeoning alcoholism?"

Kyoya stares at her from over the pizza box. Mei flushes. "Yeah," she adds defiantly. "I read."

* * *

"I'm still in love with her," Kaoru whispers, and Kyoya is far, far too sober for this conversation. There's only ever one _her_ when it comes to the Host club, when it comes to Kaoru and Kyoya in particular; for Kyoya, he has the horrible sinking feeling that that's all there will ever be. A tear tracks down Kaoru's cheek, unbidden, and Kyoya thinks he understands now, he really does.

It's not all about Haruhi, because the world doesn't work that way, but Kyoya has to admit that the majority of it is. Haruhi forced Kaoru and Hikaru apart, made Tamaki realise his ambitions, allowed Kyoya to well and truly confront the idea that perhaps jockeying for the role of Ohtori heir was a distinct possibility. This is the after, the consequence, and Kaoru hiccups around the wine bottle in a way that feels uncannily like an omen. You never get to see this part in shoujo manga, Kyoya thinks. Who would even want to see this part?

It circles back to this, always. Kaoru cannot tell Hikaru, and Kyoya cannot tell Tamaki, and so they tell one another. It's just the way it goes. Kaoru sits up, puts the bottle down, and says, "You already know that. You know everything."

"Not this time," Kyoya replies, and puts his glasses down onto the table. Kaoru looks at him long and steady and, yeah, Kyoya is far too sober for this. Kaoru's phone buzzes and he reaches for it on reflex, mouth curving up without pretense. "Is that her?"

"The pumpkin broke," Kaoru says, and stands. "You know, I thought it never would."

* * *

Kaoru came to him, six months after Haruhi joined the host club, and said, "I know what you did."

This was back when Hikaru and Kaoru had the same face, back when the year seemed to stretch on for seasons on end and it felt like Kyoya would never break free of Class 2-A. But he'd known it was Kaoru, not because of the parting or the cadence of his voice, but because anybody else would not have come to Kyoya first.

"Don't tell Tamaki," Kyoya said quietly, watching everyone else laugh and joke and bicker as the world kept on turning. "He likes to think of himself as a reformist."

"Why did you do it, then?" Kaoru had asked, fingers wrapped around a cup of instant coffee. "Profit?"

Kyoya shook his head. On the other side of the room, Hikaru and Haruhi were deep in conversation, Tamaki hovering hesitantly beside them with an expression upon his face that Kyoya had grown to recognise well.

"Because I took one look at her," Kyoya said, "and I knew."

"You're just as selfish as we are," Kaoru laughed, bitter. He only sounded a little surprised. "So you did it for yourself."

"For the greater good, some might say," Kyoya shrugged, and Kaoru laughed again. "It all worked out."

"I suppose," Kaoru admitted. "After all, what's eight million yen, really?"

"Oh, it was insured," Kyoya shrugged. "Though you can't go around saying that, either."

* * *

The seasons change again, and they're all back together. As the kotatsu is put away, Hikaru and Kaoru debate which is the better Planet of the Apes movie, and Haruhi appears by Kyoya's side in the kitchen. Cherry blossom is beginning to fall. Soon Kyoya will be graduating from university in Japan and going to America to get his MA in Business Management, and there'll be no more late night drinking sessions, and in a way he's glad. Haruhi sips peach soda from a can and says, "You know, I've never been good with metaphors."

"That's an understatement," Kyoya remarks, turning away from window and the passage of time to look at her. "You couldn't sugarcoat something if you tried."

She looks at the can in her hands and says, "Yes, that's becoming very clear. You will write from California, won't you?"

"Of course," he says agreeably. "Tamaki would go into despair otherwise."

"Not just to Tamaki," she insists. "To me. To Kaoru. To the rest of the Host Club-" she cuts a sidelong glance to Mori, who is sitting staunchly silent with Hunny. "Well, to everyone who'll reply, anyway."

Kyoya wonders if she knows. "If I find the time," he allows, and she sips her soda in acquiescence. Something about her expression strikes him and he adds, "How is Kaoru?"

She does not blush. "Ask him yourself," she challenges. "On one of your drinking nights before you leave."

"Eh," Kyoya says, and she grins then.

"You really do meddle to the end," she contemplates, and puts the can on the kitchen counter. "Or since the beginning."

"I'm not sorry," Kyoya says.

Haruhi looks over at Kaoru, Hikaru, Tamaki, Hunny, Mori, the Host Club all where they're supposed to be. If Kyoya were sentimental, he'd say that being with them is like being under a kotatsu all the time. "Don't worry," she says, and there's still a hint of a smile on her lips. "I wouldn't want you to be."


End file.
